Back Home to Stay"
by LadyDennean
Summary: My first attempt at songfiction.... Erik's POV, taken from just after Christine leaving Erik in the lair... Reviews appreciated, no punjabbing allowed.... "Home to Stay" by Josh Groban... Enjoy!


Disclaimer thingie: I didn't make up Erik and Christine, yada yada yada... Do you think I would waste my time with phanfiction if I actually had CREATED Erik? Heck no.... ::grins:: And the lyrics are from a Josh Groban song... Hope you enjoy...  
  
"Back Home to Stay"  
  
Erik and Christine  
  
I stood there for a long moment, listening to the two of them hurrying off; my angel and my hated rival. The wave of furied passion that had swept me so completely up the first moment I had lain eyes on Christine Daae had passed, the crest had broken, and left me drowning in an ocean of unutterable sorrow.  
  
  
  
"I know you're gone... I watched you leave. I always thought that it was me..."  
  
  
  
My mind's eye replayed the memory of that sweet, singular kiss that had changed everything. The feel of her soft, warm body pressed up against my hard, cold form, and that heavenly meeting of our lips... I had never been kissed before, and I would never be kissed again. And yet, ni that one, brief moment...  
  
  
  
"You made it clear with that last kiss, you couldn't live a life with 'maybes' and 'what-ifs'."  
  
  
  
I could just hear the soft thud of the pole hitting my side of the shore as the skiff-which I had made myself-helped to carry my heart away.  
  
  
  
"When every boat has sailed away, and every path is marked and paved... When every road has had it's say, then I'll be bringing you back home to stay..."  
  
  
  
She would always have a home here, and she would always keep my heart. With the softest sigh, I realized she wanted neither. She never had. She wanted to see the world, live in sunlight and beauty, and be with the handsome man she could not help but love. It had all been a facade; a delusioun that she could love me for myself, and one which I had eagerly embraced. But no one wanted me, and no one ever would. I moved slowly into the room she had once slept in, and fingered gently the only things I had left of her besides the memories: a few letting in her neat hand, two handkerchiefs, a white rose that she had once worn carefully tucked behind her ear, and a half-drawn portrait of a vase of daisies, which she had attempted during a short lesson that I had given her on the finer points of sketching.  
  
  
  
"I have the cards you sent to me. You wrote of trains and Paris galleries... This spring, you'll draw canals and frescoed walls... look how far your dreaming's gone..."  
  
  
  
I felt as though I had aged a hundred years, and, with a slowness that bordered on physical pain, I sank onto the bed. This bed, where precious Christine had once lain in slumber... I tried to console myself with the knowledge that Christine would be happy now. She would live in the sunlight and beauty that she so deserved, not in some dark, dank, cold masoleum that I had spent the last fifteen years making my tomb! She would live with the man she loved, living in the society she desiered, seeing the world, and, when at last she passed away, she would die content, fulfilled, and surrounded with those she loved. Even with these reassuring thoughts in mind, I nearly sank to my knees on the ground when I tried to rise, because of the terrible pressure in my chest.  
  
  
  
"When every town looks just the same, and every choice gets hard to make; when every map is put away, then I'll be bringing you back home to stay..."  
  
  
  
At long last, I rose and buried myself in the only true consolation I would ever find: music. Quickly, I tried to lose myself in one of my own cadenzas, playing furiously, passionately, my fingers pounding the organ keys... and yet, even in this, I could not escape the memories of her completely.  
  
  
  
"Now I know why you had to go alone... Isn't there a place between?"  
  
  
  
I think I had always understood that Christine would leave me, sooner or later. But I had so happily turned my back on that reality in favor that she may actually come to love me regardless of what lay behind my mask, that I had ignored logic and instinct and had actually begun to hope. I had even prayed to a God I thought I had stopped believing in years ago. I could no longer hear anyone in the labyrinth. The mob had already come and gone without finding me. Although, why I had bothered to mask my presence I didn't know. Better that they had found me and been done with it. But they had not and so had finally left. Christine and Raoul had long beeen gone, no matter the memories that remained behind.  
  
  
  
"When every boat has sailed away, and every path is marked and paved... when every road has had its say, then I'll be bringing you back home to stay..."  
  
  
  
I glided up to the roof of the opera house, and my eyes immedately searched out the direction where the Vicomte de Chagny had his home; the same place where he would no doubt bring his fiancee home to this very night. My hand, ungloved but apathetic to the chill of the night, fell away from the Angel statue that it had been lightly caressing and stretched in the direction that my eyes were already trained. It was as though I was reaching out to pull Christine-my love and my Angel-back to me. I had let her go, but that did not mean that I did not love her still. I would always love her. And there would always be a place at my side if she so chose it. All she had to do was call my name...  
  
  
  
"Reach out to me.... Call out my name... And I would bring you back again today...." 


End file.
